


Destiny is the Mother of Connections

by azhdarchidaen



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, space moms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 05:04:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6786376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azhdarchidaen/pseuds/azhdarchidaen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If the galaxy is to celebrate two heroes, it should also remember three women.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Destiny is the Mother of Connections

Breha Organa had known Padmé Amidala well. 

The young senator had always struck her as intelligent, well-spoken -- and pretty, in a slight sort of way that made her opponents underestimate her until she struck. Which is why she wasn’t surprised to notice those same traits develop in her adopted daughter.

Leia had a spark in her from the very start. One of those babies that would grab your fingers tightly and refuse to let go, who started babbling early and never stopped, whose first steps quickly steamrolled into _ lots _ of steps and who was shortly thereafter, and forevermore, uncontainable. She and Bail adored her for it.

It got more  _ difficult _ as she got older, of course -- reminding her she was a princess, an ambassador; someone who needed to pay attention to and entertain the points of others instead of simply demolishing them with debate when she disagreed (even when, yes, they were horribly, horribly wrong) -- but never any less worth it. The energy she burned with seemed like it would never go out.

She and Bail would talk about it, sometimes. How much Leia reminded them of Padmé. She had, especially to her husband, been a dear friend. And though she was and always would be greatly missed, it was a special sort of satisfying to see her daughter blossom into the sort of person who was doing exactly what she would have in her place. 

It didn’t take long for Leia to have objections to the Empire. To want an outlet for fighting their injustice. And while involving their adopted daughter in the Alliance at a relatively young age scared them both (and, they hesitated at the thought, might be considered unnecessarily reckless by the Jedi who’d placed her in their care…), they knew it was right. She had her mother’s sense of justice. Her desire to do the galaxy right. It seemed almost that to deny her that would be to not only limit Leia, but to deny her mother’s legacy -- and that, they both agreed, was wrong

Breha sometimes wondered if she was doing the right thing. If their friend would have thought that internal energy wasn’t an excuse for placing someone so young in danger… but it always seemed to come down to the Padmé’s last days. The frustration she’d expressed to Bail. The organization she, with him and Mon Mothma, had wanted to see come to light should democracy fall. Her daughter championed it just as much as she had.

As for her own place as a mother… well, Breha felt secure in that. Padmé’s fire may have in part lit Leia’s, and her sense of justice may have been carried on to fuel it, but children sometimes needed more than energy. She was there to make sure that happened.

Leia was placed in their care to keep her safe. But she and her husband both knew that it wasn’t just from the Empire. A darkness had befallen Anakin, and a darkness could take their daughter too -- whether or not he ever found her. There were glimpses, just glimpses, of it in a moments of anger, in a frustration a little too violent. And so she knew the best thing she could give Leia was perhaps quieter than Padme’s gifts. 

A comforting hand to lift her when she fell, to teach her Alderaanian braids. 

Stories of love and hope, and music that told them. 

Someone to offer her advice when she wanted it, and not to pry when she didn’t.

She had never been the sort to sweep the senate floor in a blaze of debate, or even imagine having the power, courtesy of the Force, that her daughter would. But she knew before Leia could put her skills to use, she needed a foundation that would keep her grounded and let her know she was loved. 

And that…. well, that was something she would gladly do.

* * *

 

 

Beru Whitesun Lars had hardly known Padmé Amidala. 

She recalled only a faint moment -- years and years ago, when the woman had come to Tatooine in the company of her now-husband’s step-brother -- of wondering whether they might ever get acquainted with each other properly. A product of keeping company with… well… Skywalkers. Or Larses where they intersected. 

Anakin was something bigger, of course, something that spilled beyond the boundaries of their little, tired planet. Still, perhaps if he was family, perhaps if the glances between him and this young woman were what she thought they were, then perhaps their small conversation while the other woman stayed with them would be the first of at least a few more.

But all that had fallen apart more dramatically than anyone, let alone herself, could have predicted. And so suddenly she was left caring for the child of a woman she’d never really gotten the chance to know -- and more than ever wished she had.

Sometimes she felt like Padmé hung over her, in a way she couldn’t quite explain. Not literally, of course, but in the weight of memory. She found herself wondering, constantly, if the other woman would ever have approved of her successor in motherhood -- had she been too harsh on Luke this morning, when the toddler came close to touching the stove? But how would she have dealt with the guilt if she hadn’t stopped him? That would have been far worse, wouldn’t it? How would his  _ mother _ have responded?

The earliest years were the ones in which these thoughts surfaced most frequently, but they never really went away. When she faced a slightly-more-difficult than usual challenge as an aunt, her thoughts would drift not only to Luke’s new predicament, but often to what that woman she’d spoken so kindly with, years and years ago, would think of it.

The two days she stayed up all night at her nephew’s bedside when he was only five, and flushed with a fever that had her and Owen trying every remedy they knew and skirting around asking each other if Kenobi needed to be contacted -- was the vigil what Padme would have wanted? How would she have reacted if it were to fail?

The time the teen got into a speeder crash while out with friends, and she didn’t know if she ought to chastise him for his recklessness or express her sympathies as he hobbled around the farm on a broken leg -- which would his mother have done?

She had so little of the woman to share with him -- not because like with his father, the boy  _ couldn’t _ know, but because she simply  _ didn’t _ . The mystery of whose child she was raising was one she wished she had the answers to, not only for her own sake, but also for Luke’s.

But she shared what she could. The day that Luke came home frustrated, from the school mandated for the children of the Anchorhead locals (overseen by Imperial teachers and not truly “teaching” at all), she took him aside carefully. She and Owen had exchanged nervous glances, and her husband had chastised him at dinner --  _ Don’t let your contentions with the Empire be obvious, Luke. You’re welcome to dislike it, but less so to be vocal. You don’t want to bring attention to yourself. Best to be quiet  _ \-- but she could tell he was still squirming with objections and arguments. And so she sat the 11 year-old down afterwards to explain to him what she could.

She knew that it was part of her job as the boy’s guardian to keep him from acting on those thoughts, even speaking them aloud -- not out of their being wrong, but out of protecting him. Luke had more to fear than even most children when it came to drawing Imperial attention. She wanted to express pride at his thinking so carefully and compassionately. But caution had to to be taken first. 

Quietly, though, memories of snatches of conversation from long, long ago surfaced. Of politics, back when there really were politics; of the rushed explanations of a hooded figure appearing at their doorstep eleven years ago. Padmé had, from what she’d carefully pieced together, largely been endangered by the Empire’s rise to power. She had been vocal -- she had objected. 

She may have been a mystery, but there were still clues.

And that… well, that was when she realized just how much of it she already knew. Luke was living with her and Owen because of a great darkness. But the boy she knew -- and, yes, loved -- was not that darkness. He was headstrong, he was reckless, he was sometimes argumentative… but it came from a sense of justice, and compassion. He got  _ righteously  _ angry. And even in all that, she saw a quiet strength of character she knew would grow with him.

She had barely known his mother, but as she reassured Luke his compassion was not a fault, she was fairly certain that she was nurturing another's light.

It was something she found a joy to protect.

 

 

* * *

Padmé Amidala had assumed she’d never know her children. Not really. 

Even in the few moments she’d seen their tiny faces, there was too much racing through her mind for it to really register that she was seeing her children for the first -- and last -- time. Her thoughts were so numb, like another, darker world was pulling at her already, no matter how hard she fought. It took genuine effort to fumble through even giving them names. With every idea, the piercing pain of old memories tainting them.

_ Anakin had hated that one. _

_ We both liked this one, maybe-- _

_ Had he suggested…? _

Part of her felt spiteful, wanting to harness her hurt and take a last slug at fate. Pick one of the names they’d rejected; it was  _ her _ choice now.

Her choice… alone. Which it was never meant to be. Because the other part of her, it wanted to pay homage to the future that  _ would _ never be. With what they’d dreamed of together, even though “together” had been shattered a thousand times over.

In the end, she went with both. Anakin had liked “Leia”, but he’d quickly shot down her own offering of “Luke”.

So that was what she gave them -- though she wished with all her heart it could have been more. It was what was left. A mixed and uncertain legacy. 

Before she could contemplate much more, it was no longer an option.

At least…. 

...that’s how she’d assumed it would be. 

Things seemed set in their ways to destroy Padmé Amidala’s expectations.

When she was a girl, she’d heard stories of those left behind. People who’d never quite finished their business in this world and failed to go on to the next. Vivid images of an evening spent with her handmaidens, when she was only a young teenager came to mind, of sending nervous glances towards other as they made up their minds to try to communicate with a rumored palace ghost, a young Queen who had succumbed to a mysterious illness before finishing her term (and eventually being terrified out of their wits when a noise -- not an otherworldly spirit, but an exasperated Panaka -- eventually came from the “haunted” hallway).

She’d thought perhaps there was stock in them, but never imagined she’d risk becoming such a spectre herself. But she supposed there wasn’t much more “unfinished business” than leaving your infant twins behind.

Hovering between one world and the next was less interesting than she’d ever thought it would be, and impossibly lonely. But it still permitted her to witness glimpses of the world she’d left behind, and in them the people her children would develop into.

She was proud of who they became… and heartbroken she wasn’t a part of the process. And yet something was better than nothing, so she watched whatever she could -- no matter the emotions it stirred.

The ones of her own gratefulness, as she watched adoptive families care for Luke and Leia alike with as much love as she could have asked of them.

The ones of pride as she watched them both decide right and wrong for themselves, and that the oppressive regime they lived under wasn’t “right”.

The ones of melancholy joy when she saw them finally meet each other, and heard in Leia’s confident teasing and Luke’s awkward introduction years of childhood together that would never be -- a picture of the family none of them ever saw happen, and yet flashed before her vividly.

The ones of seething, if despondent, anger as she witnessed everything that went down on Bespin. Her daughter hurting, heartbroken; her son shedding genuine tears over learning his heritage, directly injured by Anakin’s hand -- all constructing an ongoing chant pounding through her brain as she wished she could comfort her children, the ones she now knew her loyalty had to lie with --  _ this was never how it was supposed to be, never how it was supposed to be, never how it was supposed to be... _

And ultimately… the ones she’d almost given up hope of feeling.

Of her children embracing, knowing what they really were to each other.

Of Luke promising to make their family whole -- as whole as it could be -- again.

Of him actually succeeding.

If tears could have graced her face, they’d have spilled uncontrollably on the bridge of the second Death Star, first from fear, then from the agony of watching Anakin refuse to act… and finally, from the things she’d thought she couldn’t hold out for anymore coming to light as he did.

They were a mess, their family that never-really-was. And yet her little twins -- they’d pulled through.

Padmé Amidala had assumed she’d never get to know her children.  She couldn’t have been prouder of who they’d become.

**Author's Note:**

> my "let padmé be a mom" philosophy took some creative liberties with the last bit
> 
> if you're of the persuasion that she could never have had a force ghost, we're running with the idea that there are other kinds of ghosts in the sw universe (after all, we have ghost stories and no force in our own...)
> 
> if you're convinced she could have/deserves one/any variation on the idea, we're exchanging a firm, supportive handshake of agreement as we speak


End file.
